Cascadia
by vashsunglasses
Summary: Something’s wrong. Something bad is about to happen. Oneshot.


**Title: **Cascadia

**Author: **vashsunglasses

**Fandom: **The Sentinel

**Rating: **K+

**Summary: **Something's wrong. Something bad is about to happen. One-shot.

**Disclaimer: **I don't own The Sentinel.

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_Cascadia_

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"Something's wrong." Jim said suddenly, interrupting the game commentary on the TV.

Blair turned to look at his Sentinel, and was surprised to see him shaking and pale with a sudden surge of adrenaline.

Jim jerked his head to face his friend and spoke, "Something's not right… We have to get out of this building now!"

The Guide's jaw dropped, "What?"

"Now!" Jim yelled, grabbing Blair's hand and dragging him out of the loft.

Blair tried to keep his feet as he stumbled after his partner. His voice came out in a sputter as he tripped over his own feet and almost fell, "Is this a sentinel thing?"

Jim snarled with impatience as he waited for the rickety elevator to reach their floor, "Who knows? Who cares? All I know is that Something's coming that will kill us if we don't leave right now." The elevator reached them and he rushed onto it as soon as the doors opened wide enough, hitting the ground floor button repeatedly as the doors slowly closed and the elevator began to descend.

Blair watched as Jim began to pace the elevator. He began to speak in his most soothing Guide voice, trying to talk his Sentinel down from whatever ledge had frightened him so much, "Ok Jim. I believe you." He reached out to touch his arm, "Just calm down and-"

"I will not calm down!" Jim roared, yanking his arm away from Blair. Blair pulled away against the wall of the elevator in shock. Jim felt shame fill him at the look of hurt on his partner's face, "Hell Chief, I'm so sorry… I don't know what's come over me."

Blair opened his mouth to respond but was interrupted by the elevator doors opening at their destination. Jim felt a resurgence of his earlier urgent need to evacuate only now it was even stronger. Whatever was coming, It was close.

Jim ran from the building and jumped into his truck, Blair followed, diving into the passenger seat. Jim seemed to loose all of his momentum and merely sat there, stunned, as Blair watched him with mounting curiosity. Finally, Jim turned to look at Blair, his mouth opened to try once again to explain his strange actions. "I-"

The truck suddenly bounced five feet into the air, flung by some mysteriously silent force into the sky, then dropped like a stone back onto the street.

Blair screeched and looked around frantically, trying to locate whatever explosion had had done that, but there was nothing but a few knocked over trash cans in an otherwise calm street. He turned to look at Jim, who was staring back at him with a blank look on his face and asked futilely, "What the heck was that? Was that what you were so worried about?"

"I don't know." Jim said quietly, reaching for the door handle, "Lets go find out." As he reached over to the door next to him, Jim felt for a moment as if it was pulled away from his hand, then his brain registered the corresponding movement of the seat below him. It took only a slit second, then, just as quickly, everything was moving in the opposite direction. The bizarre movements repeated themselves and he could feel himself beginning to Zone at the strange sight.

The words burst out of Blair's mouth almost before they registered in his brain, "It's an earthquake!" he yelled, snapping Jim out of his almost-Zone and bringing his mind from the strange slow motion state it had been in. Suddenly, everything seemed to be rocking at a much quicker pace and Jim was dumbfounded at the ferocity of the shaking. He could hear the windows of the truck rattling in the same rhythm and could see the trash cans in the street being thrown around by the slithery, back and forth sideways motion of the quake.

"What do we do?" Jim yelled to his Guide over the noise around them.

"It's a pretty strong quake but it should be over in about a minute." Blair replied, "We've just got to wait it out." They both turned their focus to the digital clock in the CD player in the dash.

Ten seconds went by. Then thirty. Then the minute was over, but the quake hadn't ended yet. In fact, it was getting stronger. The road was developing cracks under the strain and they began to hear an ominous groaning noise from the buildings around them. Then, they heard the noise coming from their own building. They looked out the window to see deep cracks going up the front of the brick edifice.

"Oh… my… God…" Blair murmured with horror as he watched their home begin to crumble before his eyes.

Jim had the key in the ignition without a second thought and was gunning the engine before Blair had a chance to panic. Then they were moving, the truck plowing though the fallen trash cans as their loft disintegrated behind them, raining bricks onto the street below. Blair gasped as he was thrown around in his seat, wishing he had put on his seat belt before this nightmare had started, trying his best to hold on as Jim steered the truck past obstacles and parked cars on the deserted street. Apparently, everyone had gone into buildings when the earthquake started, buildings that were now collapsing around them as they drove desperately down the street, looking for a safe place to hide from the bricks that now flew like missiles.

One brick hit their windshield, shattering it on impact, landing on the seat between them. "We can't stay on this road!" Blair yelled over the roar of the chaos around them.

"Then where should we go?" Jim yelled back.

"The park!" Blair responded, "Head for the park!"

The truck made a quick turn and headed down the side street towards the park they could see about two blocks ahead. It seemed to take forever to reach it, with each man expecting to be buried in rubble at any moment, yet eventually they made it to the grass and continued until they were parked in the center, away from any buildings. From there they had a straight view into downtown, where they could see the sky scrapers swaying dangerously to and fro. They watched in astonishment as one of the newest and tallest swung too far and began to tip. It seemed to hang there for a moment in the sky, like a huge, glittering Leaning Tower of Pisa, and then it fell. And as the cloud of debris rose in its wake, the movement of the earth beneath the truck finally died down and everything grew still.

"We survived." Blair said softly.

"Yeah," Jim answered, "But did Cascade?"

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_fin_

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**(REWRITTEN)Author's Notes:** I'm putting these at the bottom so as not to ruin the suspense… First off, I'd like to note that I haven't actually seen "The Sentinel" in a VERY long time. I've tried to find it somewhere to buy or download but I haven't been successful. I have read a lot of fanfiction, however, so I figured I knew enough to make a few assumptions:

1) SeattleCascade

2) The building where they live is an older, unreinforced brick building.

3) The layout of their loft. (You wouldn't believe how much I agonized over this…)

For those who want to know what happened, here it is: There was a category 9 megathrust earthquake on the Cascadia subduction zone just off the coast of the United States between northern California and Vancover. This is the kind of earthquake that causes tsunami but luckily Seattle(Cascade) is protected. Cascade(Seattle) IS on the coast, but it is in a cove so the tidal waves won't reach it. Look at a map of the area and you will see two arms of land that mostly block the city from the worst that the sea has to offer. Suburbs on these arms will be totally destroyed but the city itself will be protected.

For more information, go here(take out the spaces):

http/ geology .about .com/ od/ quakepreparedness/ a/aacascadia EQ. htm

I got my information from this Discovery Channel show called "America's Tsunami: Are we next?" and from my Geology classes. The first wave that hit the car (and made it bounce) was the P waves (P for Primary). This wave moves faster and has an up and down motion. The second and longer part was the S waves (S for Secondary). These waves move slower but they are more destructive because of their side to side motion. The rest of the information is on the link above.

Sorry I left it hanging there, but I just felt like writing them IN the quake, not what happens afterwards. If someone wants to follow up on this they can (I'll call it the Cascadia Earthquake AU) but they should link back to me and/or this story. And tell me… I'd love to read it!


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